Apple pie is very good with cream poured over each slice.
First Week. Saturday.
Macaroni Soup.
- 4 quarts of cold water.
- 3 lbs. of coarse, lean beef, cut into thin strips.
- 2 or 3 lbs. of bones, broken small.
- 4 onions, sliced.
- 1 bunch of sweet herbs, chopped.
- Tomato juice or catsup.
- ¼ lb. of macaroni.
- A few salt pork bones.
Fry the meat until half done, in a very little dripping. Take it out and fry the onions and bones in the same gravy. Put all into a soup-kettle with the herbs, and cover with 4 quarts of water (cold). Bring to a slow boil, and, at the end of four hours, strain into a great bowl to cool, in order that the fat may rise and be taken off. Meanwhile, make ready your macaroni by breaking it into short bits, covering well with boiling water, a little salted, and stewing slowly twenty minutes, or until tender. Add a lump of butter the size of a walnut; let it stand, covered, for a few minutes, while you season the soup, adding the tomato-juice or catsup. Boil, skim, and thicken with a tablespoonful of corn-starch wet up with cold water. When it is again on the boil, turn in the macaroni, taking care not to break it. Heat to scalding, but do not boil; pour out, and serve.
Ham and Eggs.
Cut your slices of ham of a uniform size and shape, cutting off the rind. Fry quickly in their own fat. Remove from the pan with a wire spoon so soon as they are done, and arrange upon a hot dish, setting this within the open oven, or upon a pot of boiling water to keep warm. Drop the eggs, as you break them, into the hot fat left in the frying-pan. Do not put so many in as to crowd one another. Each egg should preserve its individuality. Cook about three minutes, without turning. Take up with a spatula, or cake-turner, and lay one upon each slice of ham. Do not send the gravy to table. Strain, and use for dripping.
Salmi of Duck.
From the cold ducks left after yesterday’s dinner cut all the meat in as neat slices as you can, leaving the joints of legs and wings whole. Take off the skin; break the carcass into pieces, and put these, with the stuffing, into a saucepan with a fried onion, some sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and a pinch of allspice. Cover with cold water and stew gently, after it reaches the boil, for one hour. Cool, that the fat may rise and be taken off. Strain the gravy when you have skimmed it; return to the saucepan, boil and skim again, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of browned flour, wet with cold water; lastly, stir in a great spoonful of butter. Stew five minutes longer, and put in the meat. Draw to one side of the range, and set, closely covered, in a pot of boiling water for ten minutes. The meat must be thoroughly heated and steeped in the gravy, but not boil. Take the meat out with a perforated spoon, pile neatly upon a dish and pour the gravy over it. Garnish with triangles of stale bread fried crisp, and send a piece to each person who is helped to salmi.